The dudes at Facebook not only have done an amazing job in building the best social web site in the world, a site that, other than my 7 month baby, has managed to recruit all the other 5 members of my family, ages 13 to 47. But now, by allowing everyone else to come to Facebook, it has build a platform that within a year will become the most valuable social platform in the world.

What I wonder is, for how long is Facebook going to allow other companies to build businesses inside Facebook? Is Facebook going to begin asking for toll payments at some point in the future or will they be happy with the fact that, in any case, it all takes place there and they will find ways to monetize the new traffic? Seeing what they have done til now, my take is that the Facebook land grab will continue with the limiting factor here, being not acreage, but attention span.

Last night I was having dinner with C.J. Cherng, the very able CEO of Taiwanese ISP Seednet, a Fon partner. During dinner we were talking about how global the Internet is and yet how different local rules are for ISPs around the world. On one side, there´s the US, who invented liberalization and, after being successfully copied by the whole world, retreated into a duopoly situation that is hurting the US consumer. On the other, there´s Europe, which implemented unbundling to such an extent that now European ISPs are the most competitive in the world. ISPs, like another Fon partner Neuf in France, have a menu of choices that would make any American forget about French rudeness and want to move there. For around $40 you get free national and international long distance, up to 20meg download speeds, a TIVO like service, cable TV channels, storage, mail, etc. And if you are an Internet fan and you happen to live in Sweden, then Labs2 offers you 100MB both ways for 89 euros a month.Read More